Friday, September 30, 2011

A rape case against five boys, 15 to 17 years old, has been dropped. The boys were accused of gang raping a 13-year-old girl. The initial complaint to police claimed the young alleged victim was dragged kicking and screaming into the side room of a distance learning lab on the lower level of a high school.
A second girl was also involved, but apparently her story was that the sex was consensual, and it wasn't consistent with the story of the alleged victim.

Moreover, the alleged victim's story didn't match the evidence gathered from the surveillance video from the school. The video did not catch the entire incident, it showed the beginning of the incident did not support her version of how things happened

After physical evidence came back from the state police lab, the alleged victim recanted most of the serious accusations. "Before making the decision not to go forward with the case, we actually wanted a few days to make sure there weren't any outside stressors that would have caused her to recant, but after a certain amount of time and she remained with her position that, most, again, most of the serious accusations, that those did not happen," said Assistant Prosecutor, Matt England.

Because the alleged victim recanted only portions of her statement, the prosecutor’s office will not bring charges against her for submitting a false statement to police, he added.

The incident occurred in November 2010, and while the criminal investigation continued, the students involved did not return to school.